Herewith, The Darkness

“According to Dark Tradition, Baphomet is a sinister acausal entity, depicted as a beautiful, mature, women, naked from the waist up, who holds in Her hand the bloodied severed head of a young man.

She is the dark, violent, Goddess – the real Mistress of Earth – to whom human sacrifices were, and are, made… She – as one of The Dark Entities, as Vamperess of The Dark Gods – is also a shapeshifter who can presence in the causal dimensions and assume human form, and thus live among us here on Earth, and it was, traditionally, to Baphomet that Initiates and Adepts of our Dark Tradition dedicated their chosen, selected, victims when a human culling was undertaken and when wars and conflict were brought forth or seeded through sinister sorcery.

Associated with Baphomet are other dark, female acausal entities who have existed, hidden, on Earth for millennia, and who maintain their causal, ageless, and secret, existence by feeding off the acausal life-force of their male human victims whom they entrap, and test, using sexual enchantment. These other entities are The Dark Daughters of Baphomet, and they – like their Mistress, The Mother of Blood, Baphomet – are thus, in a quite literal sense, beautiful, cultured, alluring but predatory vampires…

According to this aural Dark Tradition, there are several types – several different species – of sinister acausal entities, with Baphomet, and Her shapeshifting Daughters, being of one type, and having a certain nature, a particular character, a certain consciousness, when presenced in the causal and so when in-dwelling in human form. One other, more primal, more primitive, acausal species is known to us, and when beings of this particular species are presenced on Earth, in human form or otherwise, they act, behave, live, quite differently from Baphomet and Her kin, for these more primal savage beings are as demons who causally live only to unthinkingly consume human lives so that, once satiated, they may be returned to the darkness of their acausal home...”

Part One

There was much that Eulalia wanted to do, with the Dark Entities she had brought forth to Earth, but – for the moment – she would settle for just enough mayhem, destruction, strife, killings and chaos to make the government, and the people – of the land where she and her sinister kind now dwelt – take notice and perchance alter their ways.

Whatever, it would be fun, enjoyable, a Satanic paean – a necessary beginning, well-planned and well-schemed for, for almost ten causal Earth-years – and, as she stood up from sitting in the darkness on the somewhat damp Autumnal grass on the slight slope of the almost South facing hill among the mamelons of South Shropshire not far from where an ancient trackway marked the ancient border with the land of Wales, she in joy began chanting her sinister chant: Agios o Baphomet!

Venora – she of the red-hair and the fullsome body who had been a temporary host for one such Entity – was waiting for her in the large, ornate, Conservatory of their gravid reclusive house at the end of a track, off a narrow lane between hills in that isolated rural borderland, and they embraced and kissed affectionately, one scented lover to another, before entering the subtly-lit Drawing Room where the women of their sinister coven waited, as, upstairs, in secluded dark rooms, the shapeshifters – some but newly fledged – fed on what were once healthy men young in years.

There was no need for speeches, or exhortations, or ceremony, or even for spoken words, since all of that coven – reared in that house or covertly recruited elsewhere – knew almost all that Eulalia knew, and, like her, had pledged their very lives to presencing the sinister on Earth. So she went to each of them, after they had stood in greeting, to kiss them on their lips and to watch each one of them leave to walk solemnly, gravely, up the wide and winding stairs to their appointed rooms where they, in the shielding darkness there, each became temporary hosts.

Thus did they – then not quite human, inside – leave their dwelling and their home in a small convoy of vehicles driven by men of middling years, specially chosen, well-tested. For they, reared in a nearby house or recruited covertly elsewhere, knew almost all that the women knew, and had, for one yearly alchemical season, just ended, been lovers of the particular young woman they had pledged to the death to defend.

The twilight of a clear October Dawn found all the vehicles dispersed, each to their chosen destination, and Venora sat in the comfortable back seat of that luxurious car feeling the darkness within her. It – she, they – was, were, yearning for the freedom that would come only with a complete metamorphosis, a complete in-dwelling, when the human-life, with all its memories and all its weakness, would be subsumed to shrivel to die as all causal life was so fated to die; subsumed: to leave only the outer and changeable physical shell, a dwelling then for another almost alien life. Or, if it – she, they – so desired, they might keep part of the human life alive, for a while, to use as a hypnotized vassal, perhaps for some specific deed or deeds.

But for now it – she, they – was, were as they were, leaving Venora to live alone as the Venora they in their own strange way cared for, protected, perhaps even loved, for she-the-human was then as a surrogate mother to them, carrying them, if only for a while, until they could, would, be fully-birthed into some expendable human being.

Venora’s own destination was the metropolis of London, and her male driver – tall, strong, muscular – finding, after a search, a suitable place, parked the vehicle to walk with her along the teeming traffic and human filled streets under a warmless Sun the short distance to their target. It was a middling restaurant, by the standards she was accustomed to, and while they waited, they slowly consumed the overpriced and slowly served food. He – their opfer – appeared as expected, and as her research indicated he should: a middling if ambitious politician of the governing Party, given to arrogance and subsumed with pride, and dressed, in conformity to the unwritten rules, in a greyish undistinguished if well-fitting and rather expensive suit. And all she had to do was to get near enough to touch him, naked flesh to naked flesh, for the five or so seconds required.

She played her part well, rising, as if to stumble accidentally into him, pressing the palm of her hand to the back of his neck as if to steady herself to then apologize and endearingly smile. He turned to look at her and she knew then her deed was done, even if she had not felt the rush as the Entity of timeless dark chaos exited from her to seed itself – herself – within that new host. For his eyes momentarily stared, as a madman at a full-moon, before he smiled to rise to be to most of the world around the same man in the same suit in the same place at that same causal time. So she made her excuses to leave to let the Dark Entity begin its work, and it was less than two hours later that this chosen opfer returned to that exclusive club known as the Houses of Parliament. There, he chanced upon – although it was not causal chance, but some-thing else – a senior member of his Party whom he throttled to death with his hands while his once-indwelling Entity watched, playfully smiling, from her new human home, found moments earlier by his – her – guided touch. Thus was he, the killer, subdued after the deed to be hustled away only to die moments later as his heart suddenly stopped to leave only a corpse, paler and gaunter than it would have been even if all the blood and plasma within had been somehow sucked away.

There would be more mysteries, that day: some, like the state of the politician’s body, kept hidden by politicians from “the public”; others, unable to be so kept secret. And two, in particular, bloody, deadly, terrifying, and public, as Eulalia and her coven had intended. A deadly, unexpected attack by a woman berserk, who stabbed five people to death on a street in some rainy dreary city before a Policeman felled and disarmed her: but he the human could only watch in silent wordless helpless horror as the woman he restrained died to leave him holding only a corpse, only a corpse, paler and gaunter than it would have been even if all the blood and plasma within had been somehow sucked away. Then there was a bomb, hidden in a van, which exploded without warning on a busy motorway flyover into London, leaving some injured, and much destruction in its wake, as there were over a dozen murders by people possessed who, haunting cities and towns, escaped to then live a twilight lingering existence as the Entities of another acausal species within them did as their primal nature intended, shapeshifting their form when they found some healthy young human to feed on.

But it was only prelude, a mere prelude, Eulalia knew, to the real beginning she in her mischief had planned.

^^^

He had been easy to entrap, and Eulalia watched as the young man – naked in the bed of one of her young ladies in one of those many large subtly-lit rooms of the high-ceilings – slept the sleep that often arises from sexual satiation. He, she had been informed, had been a good lover – surprisingly good, given his slim frame and his rather boyish looks – and she watched him for some moments until, as if sensing her watching, he awoke to fumble on the small antique table by his side of the bed for his spectacles.

“Hello!” he said, as if half-surprised to find her there and half-surprised to find the previous afternoon, evening and night had not been some dream.

“Are you ready to get to work, then?” she asked, bewitchingly smiling.

“What?”

“What we discussed, last evening and night, in detail, before a certain young lady invited you here to her room.”

“Oh that,” Ffion replied, remembering.

“Yes. That. But only after breakfast, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“If you’ll get dressed – or not,” she said, somewhat mischievously, “I shall escort you to the Breakfast Room where Edrid will take your order.”

“Order?”

“For your rather late breakfast. He is one of the people who helps out, around the house.”

“A servant?” It was a natural deduction, he thought, given the room, the house, the extensive grounds.

“Not really, but that description will serve, for now.”

Dressed in his University-ensemble of worse-for-wear jeans, black cotton T-shirt with slogan “404 Error: Slogan Not Found”, and scruffy white “trainers”, he was escorted by Eulalia down from the fourth floor room to where Edrid – neatly groomed and neatly dressed in somewhat old-fashioned clothes – waited, all alone in the mid-morning light of the many-windowed Breakfast Room where one place had been set on the long Oak dining table.

She smiled at him before saying: “I’ll collect you when you’re ready and show you the equipment we have prepared for you.”

Thus did she leave her half-nervous, half-pleased, fledgling to attend to her many other tasks of that morning in that gravid and reclusive house of the extensive grounds. And when he was ready, she led him through a skein of corridors to a room suitably furnished for his needs.

“Wow!” was all he could say as he saw the row upon row of computer servers, and several large bright screens.

“There,” – and Eulalia pointed to where a sleek comfortable chair sat before a wide desk containing a keyboard and the largest screen – “is the control centre. Everything is fully functional, and connected. But if there is anything we might just might have forgotten, which you need, just ask Edrid. Lunch, by the way, is at one o’clock, and Dinner will be at eight, after which you shall, of course, be escorted to the bedroom of a certain young lady, for another night of salacious entertainment.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what to do.”

“You bet!”

“No doubts?”

“No. Not at all.” And he meant it, and she knew he did, for she had chosen well, having had Ffion chosen months ago and under surveillance by her Guardians since then.

“Just depress that violet button on your desk and Edrid will attend you.”

“Later!”

She smiled then, as Ffion set immediately to work at his task, given by her. He would, she felt, be a valuable and needed ally, living with them, his desires fulfilled. And if, for some reason, he failed and even thought of betraying them, she would surely know, and there were always the small now empty windowless rooms in the basements below where several young men had lingered, less than half-alive, until one of them was needed, by some un-dwelling Dark Entity, as food.

^^^

Ffion was pleased with his work, when Eulalia returned to him as the Sun began its descent and Twilight waited to visit her house with its shapeful shades of almost darkness.

“So,” she said, playfully, understanding more than she revealed to him, “all I do is sit here, in front of the screen, and speak when connected?”

“Yep, that’s it. They’ll be able to see and hear you. All I have to do to connect is type in a few commands on the x-term and press Return.”

“Splendid. Then do so.”

“What? Now?”

“Indeed.”

“OK.” And he did as commanded by his sinister Mistress, who sat herself before the screen containing microphone and camera as Ffion’s skill untraceably hacked them into a conference room of a London television newsroom where journalists of various ages and types were assembled, together with their Editor, to decide on what – and how – to report of the strange events of that day, and where, suddenly, several dormant computers began transmitting an image of a smiling Eulalia.

“Gentleman – and Ladies, of course – although I am unsure as to whether any of you merit such any such honorific. Your attention please. Please observe the photograph one of our operatives took of the corpse in your Houses of Parliament earlier today, details of which corpse your naughty politicians kept from you and your public.

“We do apologize for the rather poor quality of the image, and promise to do better, next time.

“So, now I do have your full attention, the code-word is Herewith, The Dark, which code-word you will receive when we decide to give some further demonstrations, as we did with that little explosion on one of your motorways. On receipt of said codeword, your authorities have two minutes to clear the designated area. A recording of this message will now be repeated three times, just in case you desire to record it! That is all, for the moment.” And she smiled at them again, mischievously.

A day later, she gave another demonstration. The building had only just been cleared when an explosive device reduced it to a mass of twisted metal, broken masonry and shattered glass, in the centre of London’s financial district. One more day, and one more building gutted by another device. And so, on that and other days, the dark mayhem continued, as people died, suddenly, unexpectedly, in cities and towns, or disappeared into the night, taken as food or as new dwellings for the dozens upon dozens of primal predators Eulalia and her sinister coven of sisters had released, and which predators now lurked, waiting for their chance to be as their nature, their nurture, commanded, controllable as they were only by Baphomet or one of Her many Daughters, some now having such fun with those frail humans currently infesting planet-Earth.

Another day, and the Media – as Eulalia had assumed – was replete with the expected and standard stories about “terror” and “terrorists”. But soon, she knew, they – or at least the controlling powers behind and in the government – would know or correctly deduce the truth, and then she of the sinister strategy would presence much more Darkness, for the progeny of her breeding programme were eager. and ready.

^^^

Part Two

“Just before he died, somewhat unexpectedly, of a heart attack, Malin sent me copies of his case files, and, while I did not entirely discount their contents, I did not take them seriously either, particularly since the evidence that Malin alluded to seems to have been entirely destroyed in a fire at the laboratory where his colleagues conducted their investigations into these alleged aliens.”

The speaker was a senior male Civil Servant, of the Cabinet Office’s Intelligence and Security unit, and in the airless, windowless inner room of a government department in Whitehall, he sat at the head of small functional table, inwardly wishing someone else had been given this task. Of the two men and one women seated with him, there in that room, no one – at least outwardly – betrayed any surprise on hearing the word “alien”, for they had all opened, and read, at his prior insistence, the few sheets of paper before them, headed Joint Intelligence Committee, and Top Secret, minutes of a meeting where the work of Malin’s now dis-banded team had been briefly discussed.

“Now,” he continued, “if you peruse the other document, you will see what little evidence we have relating to recent incidents. We have been given full authority and whatever resources we might require to investigate and report further on this matter, to which The Prime Minister, The Cabinet, and Joint Intelligence Committee, have assigned the highest priority.”

For some minutes, a silence among those chosen and carefully selected few, as photographs of corpses – paler and gaunter than they would have been even if all the blood and plasma within had been somehow drained away – were studied, and Intelligence documents read.

“Now,” the senior Civil Servant continued, pressing a button on the remote controller in his hand,”this a recording of a transmission received three days ago from the individual who, as our assessment indicates, is either behind some or many of the incidents, or somehow connected to them.”

So they watched a smiling Eulalia, with the senior Civil Servant freezing the last frame so that her smiling face looked slightly down upon them from its brightness nearby.

“Any comments?” he asked.

“I assume,” said the youngest of the men, casually dressed in contrast to the other somewhat older man, “you have no idea who she is?”

“Correct. We have not been able to trace the source of that transmission either, as a chain of proxy servers and zombie computers was used, some of which – after the transmission had been forwarded – had their hard drives automatically erased.”

“Operatives. Houses of Parliament,” the women – young, pretty of face and modestly dressed – said, “Are we then to presume security there, and similar places, has been compromised?”

“Certainly,” the senior Civil Servant replied, “we are considering that possibility as a matter of priority.”

“But,” interjected the hitherto silent Patterson, who, as a serving soldier of fifteen years service, recently seconded to the Ministry of Defence, had been given operational control over the unit, and whose objections to the two civilians, specialists in their own areas, being at this briefing, had been over-ruled, “until we know exactly what it is we are dealing with, such a breach cannot really be sealed, surely.”

“Correct,” and the senior Civil Servant sighed. “Which is your remit. A small specialist unit has been assembled, to assist you and we have prepared a cover-story for them, although it is quite possible you may need to update them on a strictly need to know basis.”

“And we are to consider all possibilities,” the younger man asked, “however strange, weird or unlikely?”

“Yes. You will report directly to me at least twice-daily or immediately if you have anything significant to report.”

“I would suggest,” the woman said, “we begin with an examination of whatever corpses have so far been found.”

The senior Civil Servant shrugged his shoulders. “Those conducting the detailed autopsies – as indicated in one of the documents you have – concluded they cannot explain how all the blood and all other bodily fluids have been removed and how the internal organs and indeed the flesh itself has degraded in the manner it has in the short time it occurred. No incisions; no puncture marks.”

“Even so,” she persisted, “it would be worth checking, again.”

“Of course.”

“Any pattern to the killings?” she asked.

“Of those related to the corpses we have so far found, none that can be determined. Analysis by place, age, gender, occupation, ethnicity and other categories all proved negative. Of those murders that may possibly be somehow related to the other events, there is again no pattern that can be determined.”

“The explosives used. Traces?” Patterson asked.

“The forensic analysis,” the senior Civil Servant replied, “has proved inconclusive. It is similar, apparently, to PE4 but is more powerful, but is not identical to any known type of C-4, and thus at the moment is classified as of unknown origin and manufacture, although it is possible it has been manufactured here in the UK, given the content and proportions of the plasticizer used.”

“No real clues, then. Quite an opponent,” the younger man said, and smiled as he looked again at the bright image of the beautiful Eulalia who seemed to be somehow taunting them all.

^^^

It was a week – and over a dozen deaths and one more destructive explosion later – before the government team made any significant progress. Several corpses, drained in the usual way, had been found in a small enclosed residential Courtyard of new apartments by the river in the city of York, and sightings there of a large shambling figure had led the local Police, many of whom were armed, to cordon off the area.

It was past twilight and almost dark when Patterson and the two civilians of his unit arrived to spew forth from helicopters, replete with their heavily-armed escort of Special Forces troops, two of whom were carrying modified tazer guns.

“We want it – whatever it is – alive,” Patterson said to them.

But, even as the troops deployed on that narrow tree-lined riverside road near Skeldergate, there was a shout as a large shambling figure ran toward them. It – he, she, they – leapt upon one trooper to drain him dry by only one touch and then another before one tazer and then another stunned and felled it. There was a cage, then, injections, a screen of heavily armed troopers and Police, and a short journey to where a waiting helicopter had landed, away from a gathering curious crowd. A few hours later, they had returned to their guarded secure sanctuary in the basements of a large London building, and it was there – in a specially prepared sealed laboratory – that they began their work, surrounded by their minions.

“Not what I expected,” the young Cheddon said to Patterson, as he watched, behind a thick clear protecting screen, a now white-coated Beldan begin her clinical examinations.

“We’ll soon know,” Patterson replied.

“He just looks – well – human.”

Several hours later, they had some of their answers, and the three were joined, in their conclave in a soundproofed room adjoining the laboratory, by their senior Civil Servant.

“Human, but with a slightly altered physiology…” Beldan said.

“So,” interjected Patterson, “how was it able to kill in the manner we’ve seen?”

“How is it able to kill in that way and so quickly?” Beldan said, correcting his use of the past tense.

“Currently, unknown,” Beldan unhelpfully replied.

Cheddon cast a somewhat nervous glance, through the bullet-proof glass, to where the captured naked specimen lay, drugged and securely restrained by titanium bands anchoring its arms, legs, and neck, to the clinical operating table.

“But the good news,” Beldan continued, “is that we have been able, from a fingerprint analysis, to identify the individual.”

“Quite so,” smiled Beldan. “The DNA analysis is on-going but will not, even given our resources, be complete for at least another forty-eight hours.”

“Can it talk?” Patterson asked.

“There does not appear to be any physiological or anatomical reason why he cannot,” Beldan said.

“Good. Then we’ll wake it and question it.”

“That may not be advisable,” Beldan replied.

“Advisable or not, it is what I propose we do. You have the fingerprint analysis?”

“Yes,” and she gave him the print-out which he immediately handed to the senior Civil Servant, saying, “Usual channels. Current address. To be searched ASAP. Known associates, family, anyone connected – traced, and interviewed.”

“Indeed,” the senior Civil Servant replied and left to attended to his urgent duties.

^^^

Patterson had it surrounded. Three Special Forces troopers, armed with stun guns, were positioned equidistantly in certain and definite closeness of range, as were nine other troopers armed with handguns and other firearms who had orders to kill if by some chance “the creature” – as Patterson called it – managed to escape the restraints and the stun guns failed to then immobilize it.

The heavy tranquillizers used to sedate it were wearing off, and Patterson stood nearby, a Sig Sauer pistol in his hand and ready.

“Can you hear us?” Beldan asked the awakening man.

“What’s happened?” he said, showing signs of obvious distress at being restrained and surrounded by armed soldiers.

“Do you know who you are and why you are here?” Beldan asked, as she monitored his condition, displayed by several screens nearby.

“No.” He seemed to think for a long while, then said, “The last thing I remember is going out, meeting someone, walking to the Pub.” He looked around at his clinical surroundings. “Where is this? Am I in hospital?”

“Whom did you meet?” Patterson interjected.

“A young woman.” He tried to smile, but the pain of his trauma showed in his face.

“Someone you knew?” Patterson continued.

“Not exactly, I’d only met her, causal like, the night before.”

“Can you describe her?”

“Young. Very pretty. Green eyes. Long dark hair…”

Suddenly, Cheddon had an idea, and left, to return, only moments later, with a photograph. “Is that her?”

“Yep, that’s her alright.”

Cheddon, Patterson, and Beldan, all looked at one another, and it was Patterson who said, “Was she local? From York?”

“That’s what she said. She had a place on Queen’s Staith, the hotel.”

“Wasn’t that,” Patterson asked Cheddon, “one of the locations you came up with as a possible source of one of the last transmitted warnings?”

“Yes.”

“Take over,” Patterson suddenly said to Beldan. “He’s to remain here under guard, as now. Any developments, let me know.” Then, to Cheddon, he said, “You’re with me.”

Thus did they with Patterson barking orders to uniformed minions leave and swiftly that guarded secure sanctuary in the basements of a London building to wait, not long, on its roof for a helicopter to take them back in the breaking Dawn to the city of York where, by the hour of their arrival, the whole mentioned building and surrounded area had been cordoned off. Even the usually busy Ouse bridge had been closed to traffic, with streets around deserted except for armed Police and soldiers.

“You don’t really believe,” Cheddon said to him as they positioned themselves on the cobbles between the Queen’s Hotel and the river, surrounded by their Special Forces protection squad, “that she’s still there, do you?”

“Probably not. But someone answering her description has been staying at the hotel for over a month, occupying three rooms on the same floor.”

“I don’t suppose you have a name?”

“Yes, Miss Eulalia…” and even as he said that name, the object of their search came out to calmly stand on a small balcony just above them and to their left and less than ten yards away, where she smiled and waved toward them.

“Hello, boys. Looking for me?” she said as well over a dozen guns were immediately aimed toward her.

^^^

Part Three

“Isn’t it customary”, Eulalia said, as the two men below stood just staring up at her, “to give me some sort of warning? Armed Police, and all that kind of thing? And – we have you surrounded, throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up?”

“You are surrounded,” a still rather surprised Patterson finally managed to say.

“As you can see, I have no weapons,” she replied, bewitchingly smiling and holding out her hands.

Patterson was about to issue a command when three women, all dressed in black, young and dark of hair as their Mistress, came onto the only other balcony there, next to hers. They were carrying weapons, and, without warning, opened fire on the troopers, to leave – as a firefight began – Patterson and Cheddon just standing there, looking up, as if hypnotized, toward the beautiful, still smiling, Eulalia.

Soon, nine troopers lay dead, or dying, and – as the three women still stood on their balcony firing their weapons and apparently unharmed – it began to occur to the soldiers, the Police, and both Patterson and Cheddon, that there was something, or many things, not quite right about the situation. There was the fact of the glass behind the women which had been shattered and the fact of the walls all around and above and below them which showed severe damage from bullets, several of which bullets had rebounded, and were rebounding, from those walls. There was the fact of the weapons the women had, which although seeming to resemble conventional handguns of the semi-automatic pistol type, seemed not to require re-loading and be able to penetrate the body-armour of the forward troops as perhaps only an armour piercing rifle-fired bullet might, just might, sometimes do. There was the fact that not one bullet had struck or even been fired towards Eulalia; and the fact that the women did not seem to be targeting – to be deliberately avoiding – both Patterson and Cheddon.

As the strange reality of the situation began to seep into the consciousness of Patterson, he drew his own Sig Sauer pistol and aimed it at Eulalia even as the firing in front of him continued. She lifted her hand, then, and the firing – on both sides – immediately stopped as if in obeyance to some unseen unheard command. But Patterson was a soldier, as both his father and grandfather had been, and while his trigger pull was purely instinctive, it has no effect whatever. There was no discharge; not even a movement of the hammer of his fully-functional gun, and Eulalia calmly smiled at him, and waved.

“Well, that was fun, wasn’t it,” she said to him. “To part is such sweet sorrow, as someone once said. And isn’t the music of Johann Strauss, the younger, just adorable ? But, to business. This – ” and she gestured to where soldiers lay dead, injured or dying – “is just another little demonstration of ours, of how truely powerless you and your kind now are. Well, much as I would love to stay and chat – “

And then, she and her ladies were gone, immediately instantly gone, even as her last words echoed in ears; gone, to leave only a silence amid that particular silent part of that teeming living city; gone: to leave many unasked perhaps unanswerable questions unasked.

A brief, but not quite immediate, search failed to find them, as did the later more detailed, through, intense, ones fail to find them. Even the rooms Eulalia had rented were untouched, unused, and no one – from the enclosing cordon of Police and soldiers – had seen anyone leave. It was as if, impossibly, the women had never been there, and Patterson was still pacing the blood-soaked, bullet and cartridge riddled cobbles outside the hotel when he received a call from Beldan.

“He’s dead,” her strained voice said.

“When?”

“A few moments ago. He just died – no reason I could see.”

“Did he say anything else after we left?”

“No. Only – “

“Yes?”

” – only the words To part is such sweet sorrow. He said them, smiled, and then just died. Is what he said of any significance?”

“Perhaps. You will do a full autopsy, I assume.”

“Naturally. I should have some preliminary findings by the time you return.”

“Excellent.” The call over, he turned to Cheddon, who was walking beside him. “You heard?”

“Yes. Ambushed, then, by the beautiful… – what was her name?

“Eulalia.”

“- by the sorceress Eulalia.”

Thus did they, both still perplexed and almost exhausted, walk together silently with what remained of their squad to where their helicopter waited to take them back to their guarded, but possibly no longer secure, sanctuary in the basements of some large London building, as, not that far away, and unobserved by them, Eulalia was watching, waiting and ready to unleash more dark terrors out into both their day and their night, for there was much that she wanted to do, with the Dark Entities she had brought forth to Earth, and with the progeny she and others had bred forth from them.